The timeshare thread got me thinking, what are some small ways to save big money over time? A few things we implemented are:
Credit card with points back Thermos for coffee from homeBringing lunchNot or minimally eating outSell shit on ebay, craigslist, etc.Home insullationImproved efficiency appliancesKeep cars a minimum of 10 years.Do it yourself/ Learn basic plumbing, electric, etc.We failed at gardenning, carpooling which I’m sure could work just not for us right now.
What else?
Don’t smoke.
what are some small ways to save big money over time?
Don’t cheat on your wife. Better yet, don’t get married or have kids.
Coupon shopping
Piggybacking online shopping through airline points portals
Dumpster diving
Using Gorilla Glue and Shoe Goo to prolong the life of shoes
Using Oxi-clean only instead of laundry detergent or household cleaning agents.
Using grey water to water plants or yards.
Jump on the half-off bills Sprint cell phone deal tomorrow.
cut cable and home phone
.
Where we seem to save the most compared to our friends is in heating. We live in Maine and probably spend somewhere around $1000, we have friends that spend in excess of $5k.
We use wood as our primary source of heat, supplemented with natural gas. We mostly only heat the first floor of the house and shut the upstairs off with doors, which effectively halves the area we are heating. Shoot for a temp around 65 during the day and let it get down to whatever it gets down to at night, usually around 50 if it’s good and cold outside.
Better yet, don’t get married or have kids.
I thought married couples tend to build more wealth then single individuals. Kids are wealth eaters. So get married don’t have kids…marry a wife that is ok with you sleeping around…if that’s your thing.
~Matt
DONT SPEND YOUR MONEY.
no seriously. How many shirts / pants do you really need.
Buy the smallest house you can, you will have less space for crap.
Don’t buy crap.
Reduce your expenses & sell your crap. End of story. You will begin feel really rich.
Live smaller.
Number one expense for most households is living space. Buy a smaller house or rent a smaller apartment. This has a dual effect. You have less expense or debt load if you buy smaller then you would have and you have significantly less expense across the board, less to maintain, less space to fill, less utility costs etc etc. If you can afford a 300K house and buy a 150K house you’ll be packing away a ton of money. Same goes for cars and most other purchases. The exceptions would be were “Smaller” means less quality. In many cases it pays to buy a higher quality product that will last the rest of your life then it does to buy the same less expensive piece of crap every year.
Rent. If you aren’t using something all the time you don’t need to buy it. I keep wanting to buy a tiller then I realize I use it twice a year and can rent one for 80$. To purchase the same tiller would cost me 1200-1500$. I can rent for 10 years and still break even. The rental place pays for all the gas, oil changes, maintenance, clean up etc etc etc as well. I’ve come to the same conclusion about chainsaw, seasonal yard equipment and other stuff as well.
Don’t make yourself “Insurance poor”. If you’re relatively healthy and family is relatively healthy get the largest deductible you can find. Get minimum mandatory with highest deductibles for auto home et making sure to CYA on the upper end not the lower. Get the right kind of life insurance if it’s even necessary.
FWIW I garden, quite a large area, and I’m pretty sure it has NEVER saved me any money. By the time you add in all the tools, seeds or plants, stakes, tiller, mulch/ground cover blah blah blah you end up paying twice as much as what you can buy it at the store. Throw in canning, energy to can and heat, jars, lids etc etc and it doesn’t get better. The food is a hell of a lot better, probably is better for you but it sure as hell and a money saver.
~Matt
There are two gigantic ones that are already out there.
Don’t have kids
Don’t get divorced
Pack Lunch
You have my biggest one on your list already, pack your lunch. My wife and I work for the same company and eat lunch together most of the time. There is one place we can get lunch for $5 each, but most every other place we are pushing $20. Heck even a big salad and drink in the company cafeteria breaks $10. So packing lunch easily saves us $75 - $100 a week.
Learn to do basic stuff on your car.
Most of it isn’t that hard. Learn how to change brake pads, exhaust work is ridiculously easy, etc. Never pay the oil change guys to change wipers or filters. I had my wife time me changing the air filter, I made over $1700/hr for the 17 seconds it took me to do it.
Never pay ATM fees - paying $4 for a $20 bill is pretty damn dumb
And my last big one that we had to do, stop just wandering around on a Saturday or Sunday buying $100 - $200 worth of shit you don’t really need. Triathlon saves me money, it keeps me from getting bored and going out and wandering Costco. All of what we bought could be easily justified, but most of it wasn’t needed.
Your subject line is misleading. Saving is not showing me the money. Earning is showing me the money. If you want more $$$ then earn more $$$. Saving it does not produce more. It’s already yours. That being said, I like your tips for saving more of what you already have.
By the way, no one has ever bought a timeshare in order to save money. No one.
what are some small ways to save big money over time?
Change the way you rationalize expenditures. Annualize the cost.
If something is ‘only’ $100 a month, don’t think in terms of it is only $3 a day or $100 a month. Think of it in terms of the annual outlay. It is $1,200. After tax. So likely $1,700 or so pre-tax. If you earn $75,000 that is 2.25% of your earnings. The Q becomes, 'is that item worth ___% of your earnings?'.
Live smaller.
Number one expense for most households is living space. Buy a smaller house or rent a smaller apartment.
Absolutely. One anecdote: my girlfriend and I decided to live together a few months back. She was living with her parents, I had an apartment, about 1,100 sq. feet. With a dog already in tow she didn’t think the apartment was big enough and wanted a 2nd bedroom for guests. After looking at places (that were all 60%+ more and not nearly as updated as my apartment) she finally relented and we stuck with my current place. Four months in and it’s more than enough space, and we’ve had exactly one guest, who slept on an air-mattress in the living room. We’ve already saved, minimum, $2,400 plus moving costs, and heading into winter I’m psyched we don’t have that empty 2nd bedroom to heat.
FWIW I garden, quite a large area, and I’m pretty sure it has NEVER saved me any money. By the time you add in all the tools, seeds or plants, stakes, tiller, mulch/ground cover blah blah blah you end up paying twice as much as what you can buy it at the store. Throw in canning, energy to can and heat, jars, lids etc etc and it doesn’t get better. The food is a hell of a lot better, probably is better for you but it sure as hell and a money saver.
~Matt
Got to do it because you enjoy it, especially as the foods that could potentially make up the bulk of your calories (e.g. potatoes, beans, grains) are dirt cheap in the grocery store.
Probably the best way to save money on food is to buy basic ingredients and make your own meals rather than buying the pre-made stuff, and of course not eating out.
Make a list of what you will eat for the week and buy only what you need for those meals.
When you get paid take 5-10% of that and put into a different account before you do anything else.
Don’t carry credit card debt.
Pay extra on car or home loan so you can get rid of debt faster.
Limit stays to 4 star hotels
Fly Business Class instead of First Class
Fly Commercial instead of private
Drink Cava instead of champagne
Foie Gras de canard instead of goose
Domestic caviar
Domestic Kobe (aka wagyu)
Buy Bordeaux and Burgundy by the case and cellar it
Switch to white truffles
.
Better yet, don’t get married or have kids.
I thought married couples tend to build more wealth then single individuals. Kids are wealth eaters. So get married don’t have kids…marry a wife that is ok with you sleeping around…if that’s your thing.
~Matt
I think the assumption is that the Wife makes at least as much as she spends. So, point conceded in that situation. Still, kids are hoovers.
Transportation costs can be significant so bicycle commuting everywhere including work, school and to the store will result in a huge finacial savings.
DONT SPEND YOUR MONEY.
no seriously. How many shirts / pants do you really need.
Buy the smallest house you can, you will have less space for crap.
Don’t buy crap.
This sums it up. I seriously doubt there is a bigger cheap a$$ on this board and I’ve personally done a few cost-cutting things in the past which I would be embarrassed to admit, and which the wife wouldn’t deal with. My family’s total living expenses last year were ~$22k in a MCOL area; that’s wife, 2.5yr old, and me. We rent the bottom half of a duplex (~750sq. ft) in a really nice area where somehow our household income is almost 3x the median, drive cars which we bought in cash for about two months income (and when the snow melts we will both be commuting by bike), most of my clothes I’ve had for 5+ years, almost all of my daughter’s clothes come from birthday/christmas gifts from grandparents or my work/church child stuff trades, never eat out and are are anal about grocery expenses, find free or very low cost activities, etc. I also use cashback credit cards for every possible expense, have a MangoMoney savings account (6% interest on the first $5k if you jump through a few hoops), and spend ~10sec every day doing online surveys (maybe $150/yr). Habits I learned from a grandfather who lived through the depression and growing up dirt poor myself.
It’s a lifestyle more than anything. Didn’t feel bad about blowing 15% of our annual living expenses on new cyclocross bikes, a high end child bike trailer, bike trainer, etc. for Christmas because for the rest of the year living this way allows us to save over half our income.